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Salesforce.com Announces General Availability of Offline Edition

Company is First to Leverage .Net and Patent-Pending Technology to Re-Create Online Environment in Offline Edition

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — August 19, 2002 — Salesforce.com, the market leader in online customer relationship management (CRM), today announced the general availability of its Offline Edition, built on .Net and other dynamic web languages. Offline Edition is the first product of its kind to allow users to take key customer information in salesforce.com and work offline via the same easy-to-use, browser-based interface as salesforce.com's online applications. The new capabilities, based on patent-pending technology, translate into less down time and greater productivity for remote users and roaming sales teams anywhere in the world. Offline Edition is available today with salesforce.com's Enterprise Edition. It is available for an extra $25/user/month with the Professional Edition.

The Offline Edition leverages leading technologies such as .NET, XSLT, DHTML, and MSXML to re-create the salesforce.com's user experience in an offline setting. Unlike two-dimensional Excel-based offline tools offered by competitors, salesforce.com generates screens that precisely match the familiar online salesforce.com interface and maintains the multi-dimensional relationships of data. Offline Edition incorporates the interactions between "accounts," "contacts" and "opportunities," while preserving company-specific customization for a full-featured CRM solution for use when an Internet connection is not available. When users are back online, a single click allows them to update the system without losing any information in the translation.

"It is the first business application software we know of that allows users to operate offline with no changes to the interface," declared eWeek Labs in a recent review of the product. "Salesforce.com's Offline Edition bridges the chasm that divides hosted applications from the offline world." ("Salesforce.com Gets Disconnected," eWeek, 6/10/02)

Offline Edition eliminates the IT headaches associated with traditional offline solutions from client-server companies because there is no need to install local databases or Web servers. The offline solution does not require users to run heavy, resource-intensive software locally on their laptops, or perform lengthy and error-prone data synchronization, but rather allows sales people to take key information with them on the road in a salesforce.com 'briefcase,' without sacrificing any functionality.

"The Offline Edition's identical interface and one-click update feature allow our sales team to capture essential data, no matter where they are," said Mike Bauer, Northern region vice president of sales and marketing at Siemens Power Transmission & Distribution, Inc., an operating company of Siemens Corporation and Siemens AG (NYSE:SI). "Whether in the workplace, waiting rooms or at the airport, field representatives can update customer data, input meeting notes and track opportunities while the information is still fresh. Offline Edition gives us a powerful new way to ensure that the information that flows into salesforce.com is as accurate and up-to-date as possible."

"Up until now, offline solutions have typically been either Excel-based, or client/server based. Both solutions hold significant drawbacks for end users," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. "Excel-based solutions are only two-dimensional - regardless of the user interface, an Excel solution is only as good as a spreadsheet. While the typical client/server offline solution has different issues, this type of approach is also cumbersome, requiring users to install a local database or web server in order to run offline. The Offline Edition breaks down these barriers by maintaining dynamic information in an identical environment. Salesforce.com is now available to any user, at any time, anywhere in the world."

Salesforce.com currently has more than 4,900 customers for its suite of CRM solutions, including global leaders such as Le Meridien, Autodesk, and USA Today. Salesforce.com delivers its CRM solution as an online information utility via a Web Services infrastructure. In the past year, salesforce.com has added more CRM customers than Siebel, PeopleSoft, Oracle, and SAP combined.

About salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the world’s largest provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software. For more information about salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM.” For more information please visit http://salesforce.com/eu/, or call 00800 7253 3333.